


Flawed Timing

by Baamon5evr



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Canon Disabled Character, Dubious Science, Erik Lehnsherr Being an Idiot, Erik Logic Is The Best Logic, Family Drama, Flashbacks, Gen, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Human Charles Xavier, Implied/Referenced Terrorism, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mutant Politics, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Past Abuse, Poor Charles Xavier, Social Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:27:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27726814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baamon5evr/pseuds/Baamon5evr
Summary: Charles has been living his life as a baseline, unbonded man for years. He didn’t need a soulmate or a mutation. However, an unexpected encounter forces him to recall and confront his painful past, in more ways than one.
Relationships: Azazel/Raven | Mystique (X-Men), Charles Xavier/Other(s), Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier, Raven | Mystique & Charles Xavier
Comments: 11
Kudos: 62





	1. Reintroduction

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Imprint](https://archiveofourown.org/works/263231) by [PoorMedea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorMedea/pseuds/PoorMedea). 



_ Is my timing that flawed?   
Our respect run so dry?   
Yet there’s still this appeal   
That we’ve kept through our lives _

* * *

**_Now..._**

Charles sat in the car outside the house, staring out at the scene before him. He had been lingering for almost five minutes now, trying to convince himself to go in and face the music. Children in birthday hats with party blowers were playing in the yard, the rainbow collection of them freely using their mutations whilst under the watchful eyes of adults. Music was playing and he could see people within the dwelling through the windows. Somewhere amongst the throng was Raven and Kurt.

Before little Kurt was born, Charles and Raven’s relationship was strained, affected by their lingering grievances, real and imagined. His accident and Raven meeting her soulmate had helped to bridge things between them. However, it was after the birth of her son that his sister decided they needed to hash things out, especially after Charles had nearly had a conniption after learning she named him after her father. They tried to be as honest with each other as possible nowadays, but he still had a secret or two that he figured he would take to the grave. He and Raven were okay most of the time. They argued frequently but they were opinionated people so that wasn’t a surprise. Thus, he found himself at his nephew’s birthday party surrounded by people and children. He always felt unsteady in these settings given his disability and his lack of extraordinary powers, but this was for his sister and Kurt.

He reached over to the passenger dashboard and grabbed his Rejexar bottle. He popped two of the capsules before reaching for his cane. He was using the one Raven got him for Christmas. The shaft was black beechwood with a silver collar, but the handle was a marble-like swirl of golden sienna and black that caught the eye. He hoped his use of it would curry favor with her given his tardiness. He patted his cybernetic leg braces beneath his slacks to ensure they were secure and then exited his car.

He limped across the street, waving appreciatively at a car that stopped to let him pass. He walked into the house, dodging children as best as he could. The leg braces and various sensors implanted in his body helped him to retain most sensation and control below the waist, but his reflexes were not what they once were. A boy with silver hair and two young brunettes knocked into him. An older girl with her face hidden amongst her tresses of dark auburn hair snapped at them to apologize before the four children continued towards the foyer at a slower pace.

Charles continued inside, looking for the source of the jovial, if disorganized, occasion. As he made it to the living room, he found them. Raven was on the couch chatting to Anna Marie, Azazel’s sister, who sat beside her playing with Kurt on her lap, Anna Marie’s hands swathed in her gloves to limit skin to skin contact.

No one gave him much more than a dismissive glance, whether for his disability or his lack of active mutation, he wasn’t sure. He never was in settings like this. Before he could get too mired in self-consciousness, Kurt spotted him and let out a loud exclamation. 

“Dyadya!” 

Charles smiled brightly at him in return. As he approached, he met Raven’s eyes. Her face was placid, but her eyes were aflame with annoyance at him and a promise to tear him a new one. He looked back at Kurt as the boy reached up for him. He took him in his arms, ignoring Raven’s protests that Kurt was getting too big and Charles would hurt himself. He might have a back held together by Tony Stark’s force of will, but he wasn’t made of glass. He pressed an avalanche of kisses to Kurt’s blue face, delighting in his giggles at the action.

“And how is my birthday boy?”

“Good!”

“I bet. All the cake and ice cream you want, who wouldn’t be in heaven?”

Kurt giggled at his words, his sharp teeth flashing past his lips as he pressed closer to his uncle’s chest.

“I’m just sad you’re all grown up now. Soon you’re going to leave us. We’re only going to see you on Thanksgivings and Christmases. Oh dear, whatever shall we do,” Charles lamented in mock-sadness, drawing another giggle from his nephew.

“I’m only three, Dyadya. I can’t go away.”

“Really? I suppose you’re right. How silly of me to have forgotten.”

“It’s funny that you know your limits now, but when you tried lighting the candles on your own, you were a very big boy, Kurtie,” Raven commented, watching them fondly.

“That’s because I’m three, Mommy. I can light candles all by myself. Right, Dyadya?”

“Oh no, I’m in enough trouble. I can’t be on your side this time, dear.”

“But Papa lets me,” Kurt rebutted with a pout.

“He does, does he?” Raven replied, a look of disapproval on her face.

“I think you’ve just gotten Azazel in trouble. Quick, run off before he comes and finds out you spilled the beans.”

Charles placed Kurt on the floor and watched the toddler escape to cause mischief elsewhere, his tail lashing in the air behind him. He turned back to Raven, to see her eyebrow quirked expectantly.

“I’m sorry,” Charles led with.

“You were meant to be here over an hour ago. Kurt was worried you weren’t going to show.”

“I got caught up with a student in my office.”

“You said you were taking the day off.”

“Moira had to go to the hospital with her son and Hank and Cecilia are on their honeymoon. I had no one to cover me.”

“You’re tenured. They could’ve gotten some grunt to do it or you could’ve canceled the class.”

“I made it a study day and held meetings the whole time. I would’ve been an hour more if I hadn’t.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Charles held her glare imploringly before Raven sighed and waved at him dismissively.

“You could’ve changed out of your grandpa clothes at least. How are you supposed to attract any positive attention dressed like an 80-year-old?”

“This is my best cardigan,” Charles rebutted.

Raven gave him a dubious look.

“I like your fashion sense, Charles. It’s unique,” Anna Marie interjected with a smile.

“Thank you. At least someone appreciates me.”

Raven rolled her eyes and nodded towards the kitchen.

“There’s still food left. I bet you didn’t eat anything. I’m guessing you came here straight from class. Go, eat. You get lightheaded on an empty stomach.”

Charles was a little panicked she noticed before assuring himself she couldn’t know the reason why. He limped towards the kitchen, pressing himself to the wall as the same children as before nearly barreled into him. The older redhead stopped and looked up at him. His gaze couldn’t help but be drawn to her eye as she looked up, her hair falling away to reveal the left side of her face. There was a striking red scar cutting through it, starting from her hairline and trailing off her cheek towards her ear, only interrupted by her milky iris.

“I’m sorry about my siblings. They should watch where they’re going,” she apologized, her hand reflexively moving to brush her auburn hair back into her face.

Charles smiled kindly down at her.

“It’s alright. They’re probably excited. It’s good in a way. It keeps me agile,” Charles quipped before nearly smacking himself in the face. He was talking to a child that looked no more than ten-years-old, not one of his college students.

The girl smiled at him anyway before following after her siblings. Charles continued in the opposite direction towards the kitchen. There were a few people milling around, standing with plates in hand. He walked over to the pans of food and dished himself a plate before sitting down heavily in an unoccupied chair. He fielded a few conversations with friends and acquaintances that came back and forth before he was beckoned by his brother-in-law.

“Ah, Charles. I see you’ve got into the food,” he heard Azazel say behind him.

“My dear sister reminded me that humans need to eat to survive,” he replied, looking up as the red-skinned man came around to stand in front of him.

“You spend too long in office. She worries for you,” Azazel commented, his thick Russian accent punching through every word.

Charles shrugged noncommittally. He didn’t think it was worry so much as Raven lamenting his lack of social life. She used to complain that he was a slut back when they were at Oxford together. Now, she would drone on about the copious amounts of time he spent in his office or at the mutant outreach center when he wasn’t teaching. The only close friends he had were Moira and Hank, his colleagues. Raven teased that he would end up dating one of them if not a student if he didn’t get out more.

“How are you ever going to find your soulmate if you stay in your office all the time,” she would grouse.

Little did she know.

The only special man in his life for the moment was his cat, Cerebro, and it looked like it would stay that way. His injuries made him wary of dating. Some people saw the cane and turned running, to say nothing of the leg braces once he took his pants off. Others looked at him like some newly discovered species they would like to learn about more in the encyclopedic sense than the carnal one. Funnily enough, being fetishized for his disability wasn’t as much of a turn on for him as it was for others. He resigned himself to a lonely existence years ago. He liked focusing on his work. Regardless of what he said, Raven and Azazel (probably because Raven was making him) had taken it upon themselves to try setting him up.

As if reading his thoughts, Azazel waved someone over.

“I want you to meet a friend of mine.”

Charles sighed discreetly but decided to grin and bear it. He looked up as the other man came into view. He scrunched his eyebrows as soon as he saw him, trying to place him. It took him about half a second before he realized, just a moment behind the other man if his shocked expression was any indication. It had been thirteen years, but he could still recognize those grey-green eyes, that auburn hair, that strong jawline. Beyond that, the abrupt warm tugging in his very core made it clear who this man was.

“Erik?”

Charles blinked a couple times, thinking the other man might disappear, but he was still there. Erik was thirty-six now if his math was correct. His auburn hair was longer than before, combed and parted neatly. His jaw and cheeks were dusted with facial hair. There were lines next to his eyes and on his forehead now, but he was still devastatingly attractive, probably more so than he was before.

“Charles,” Erik breathed out, more awestruck than even Charles was to see him. 

“You know each other,” Azazel asked, looking between them with interest. 

“We’re...” Erik trailed off, his face reflecting how unsure he was about how to quantify their relationship. 

“We met in Germany during my study abroad program. I worked at his mother’s recreational center.” 

His words appeared to have gone over Erik’s head. He was still in amazement at having seen Charles and was staring at him unabashedly. 

“But your last name isn’t Marko,” Erik pointed out, seemingly bewildered by the fact. 

“Indeed, it isn’t...” he confirmed, unsure why that threw Erik off.

Azazel moved in to explain.

“They are not blood siblings. Raven’s father married Charles’ mother when they were children.”

“Oh.”

Erik appeared to shake off his shock and he nodded at Charles with a softened expression.

“It’s good to see you, Charles.”

He rose a surprised eyebrow at that. He wouldn’t expect it from Erik after how things went between them. Then again, it had been thirteen years. Before he could answer, Anna Marie popped her head into the kitchen.

“Az, we’ve got a piñata in the front yard that needs your attention.”

The Russian man’s lips tilted into a sarcastic grin.

“Just what these gremlins need. More sugar,” he muttered but went off to deal with the next attraction for the children.

Charles watched him walk away before turning back to Erik. His eyes hadn’t left Charles once. It was disconcerting.

“Do you want to sit?” He offered after a beat of silence.

Erik wordlessly fell into the chair across from him and continued to stare. After a moment, Charles felt compelled to point it out.

“Is there something wrong with my face?” 

Erik shook his head, seemingly embarrassed. 

That was new. 

“No, I just... I didn’t expect to see you again.” 

Charles nodded in agreement. 

“I didn’t expect to see you either. At a three-year-old’s birthday party no less.” 

“That seemed as good an excuse as any to let the children get out of the house and play with other kids.”

Charles’ eyebrows went up in surprise. 

“You have children?” 

“Four,” Erik replied, his mouth turning into a prideful smile. 

That expression on his face was a little more familiar, though the reason threw Charles. When he thought of Erik, and he rarely did nowadays, he couldn’t picture him as anything other than that domineering, forceful, intractable man who had looked him in the face and decided they couldn’t be together because it didn’t service his worldview. Even when he saw a softer side to the older man, it had still been tinged with anger and a deep-seated pain past which Charles and what he represented could not penetrate. He couldn’t ever picture him as this older, but no less attractive, man whose face was still all sharp lines and planes but held softness there rather than the immutable anger the Erik of thirteen years ago did. Maybe that was on account of the children.

Erik removed his phone from his pocket and began fussing with the device before he passed it over to Charles.

“That’s Anya and Nina. They’re ten and five. Anya’s part of the gifted and talented program at her school. Nina’s already gotten skipped to the 1st grade because she’s performing so well,” he relayed of the two girls in the picture.

The eldest was a redhaired girl, her hair falling into her face. She was sitting on the floor with a younger brunette between her legs, the two’s hands molding wet clay on a spinning wheel. He scrolled to a picture beside it where two young kids were standing side by side beaming at the camera in soccer uniforms.

“That’s the twins, Wanda and Pietro. They’re seven. They’re on their school’s soccer team. They’re really good too.”

Charles glanced up at Erik, bewildered to say the least. His mind casted back to the images of Erik that stuck in his head. He thought of Erik getting into fistfights with anyone who he perceived to have even the slightest bias against mutants. Erik sitting at a table on campus grounds with brochures and posters preaching the merits of mutant/human segregation. Erik arguing against some of the programs his own mother created at the mutant outreach center she founded because he thought they were too conciliatory, even though the center was created to support mutant and mixed-gene families in getting government assistance, enrolling in mutant-friendly schools and providing afterschool activities, not to be a hotbed for Erik to poach people for his radical activist group, the Brotherhood. Now, contrary to all of that, Erik Lehnsherr had grown to be one of those parents who showed everyone pictures of their kids and bragged about how great they were. He was stunned but decided to indulge him.

He scrolled through a few more photos of the children with Erik, pictures of them ice skating, eating ice cream, at a theme park, a museum, a zoo and visiting Germany. It took him a moment to realize that they were familiar.

“I ran into your children in the hall a couple times, or rather they ran into me.”

Erik, again, looked abashed.

“I’m sorry. They’re usually much better about not getting underfoot.”

Charles waved off the apology.

“I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to come. They’re kids and there’s cake, ice cream, candy, other children. If I didn’t expect it to get a little rowdy, I’d be an idiot. Your oldest, Anya was it? She ran quite the tight ship. She made sure they apologized both times.”

“At least they retained manners,” Erik grumbled, rolling his eyes.

Charles smiled at the exasperated action.

“Is their mother here too? I’d love to meet her. She must be a special woman to put up with you.”

Erik’s face dimmed.

“I’m a widower.”

Charles blinked and his smile faded away.

“Oh, I’m so sorry for the loss.”

Erik nodded in return.

“Thank you,” he replied hollowly.

Charles racked his brain, desperate to change the subject.

“How is Edie doing? I haven’t talked to her in a while, but I still think about her all the time.”

Erik’s expression dimmed even further.

“Oh no, did she...”

“Cancer, two years ago.”

Charles fell back into his chair. Edie had been so kind to him, so understanding. She was more motherly to him than Sharon had ever been. Charles’ demons drove him away from everyone in Düsseldorf more than his tumultuous relationship with Erik ever had. Once he was back on his feet again, literally and figuratively, he had always said he would contact everyone he knew back then someday, mainly Ruth, Edie and Gabrielle. He had just never got around to it.

“God, if I knew...”

“It’s alright. You couldn’t have known. It was hard to deal with, still is some days, but she got to meet all of her grandchildren and she did a lot of good with the time she had.”

Charles nodded in agreement.

“She did. Who’s in charge of JLC now? Ruth?” He asked tentatively, hoping that wasn’t another landmine.

“There’s a board of directors there now, but Sabra is the president of the board. Ruth and her family moved here to New York after Mama died.”

Charles’ mood lifted a bit at the thought of Ruth, all grown up with a spouse and a child. He couldn’t picture that. When he thought of her, he saw the cheerful if mischievous teenager who spewed out fond insults at her big brother and teased Charles any chance she got.

“She looked you up recently, you know?”

“Oh yeah?”

“Tried finding you on Facebook apparently.”

“I stay away from social media. I’d rather not chance losing my job at Colombia in favor of positing pithy statuses and posting photos I don’t like taking in the first place. I’d like to see her again.”

“She’d like that.”

The two shared an amicable smile before Charles waved at Erik’s phone again.

“Alright, spill. What powers do your children have? I’m surprised you didn’t brag about that already. The youngest look too young to have manifested, though your son’s hair is quite impressive, but Anya looks about that age.”

A strange expression passed Erik’s face before he spoke.

“The twins and Nina have tested positive for the x-gene, but Anya’s baseline.”

Charles rose a tentative eyebrow at that.

“I’m sure that must have been... shocking for you.”

Erik shrugged uncomfortably.

“My wife, Magda, was baseline, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.”

Charles stared at Erik for a moment, but the other man wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“Oh,” Charles commented simply, looking down at his plate.

For reasons he wasn’t too ignorant to realize, that truth stung. Erik had left Charles for not being what he wanted, but he went on to marry a human woman and have children with her. He wondered if she were his soulmate as well. He swiftly decided he did not want to know the answer to that question. It would needlessly upset him. He tried to tell himself there was no point in being bitter but that was easier said than done. Erik cleared his throat after the silence between them stretched a beat or two too long.

“Charles, I owe you an apology.”

The younger man looked at Erik inquiringly.

“The way I treated you back then, you didn’t deserve it. It was wrong of me, shortsighted, and hypocritical for me to reject you so harshly out of hand. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I know words can’t make it better, but I apologize anyway. If I could do things differently, I wouldn’t have abandoned you or hurt you. I wouldn’t have let you leave without saying goodbye or trying to explain everything to you. You deserved more from me. I’m sorry that I wasn’t better to you.”

Erik appeared to be sincere. His green-grey eyes were clear, holding no subterfuge or trace of malfeasance. Charles opened his mouth to accept the apology but found he couldn’t. He cleared his throat and then tried again.

“Things happen for a reason, right? If our relationship didn’t end in Düsseldorf, you probably wouldn’t have your children. It doesn’t make it okay, but at least something good came out of it all in the end.”

That wasn’t an acceptance but that was all Charles had to give. Erik studied him for a moment before looking down at his hands.

“Right.”

Any further discussion was abruptly cut off by the arrival of Kurt, barreling into the kitchen in a swish of blue.

“Dyadya, Mommy is calling for you.”

“Thanks, dear. I’ll be right there.”

“I can help you walk, Dyadya. I’m three now, so I’m strong,” Kurt announced.

Charles smiled down at the boy for the offer.

“I can do it on my own, but that’s very considerate of you, dear.”

Kurt preened at the praise and darted to Charles’ other side to retrieve his cane, passing it to him so Charles could push himself up. The little boy snatched the plate Charles had been eating out of and threw the paper dish away before looking back at his uncle expectantly.

The professor turned to Erik after he was standing again. The German gave the cane a cursory glance of interest before settling his gaze back to Charles’ face.

“It was nice to see you again, Erik. Pleasant. I hope I’ll see you around again some time.”

Before he could turn to leave, Erik stopped him.

“Well, I could give you my number. We could talk or text. If you want. We could catch up.”

Charles hesitated for a moment, wondering to himself if that was a good idea. There was something in Erik’s face, something like hope, though that might be a trick of the light.

“Sure,” he blurted out, though he wasn’t entirely certain why.

Erik seemed equally surprised by his assent, but Charles simply handed his phone over to him and let him program his number inside. He shot him a quick text to make sure Erik got his number too and then gave him one last smile before limping away, Kurt vigilantly on his heels.

 _Erik bloody Lehnsherr. Of all the places to run into him,_ Charles thought to himself, shaking his head at his own luck.

He met Raven out in the living room. She took one look at his face and scrunched her brows.

“You alright?”

“Yeah, just ran into someone.”

Raven looked at him curiously, but he waved it off.

“Later.”

Later came much sooner than he would’ve liked. He should’ve known Raven wouldn’t just let it go. He sat on the porch with Kurt, pointing at the visible constellations. He used to do this with his father before he died. He was glad to pass the tradition along. He looked up as the front door opened and Raven and Azazel stepped out.

“Time for a bath, dorogoy,” Azazel said.

Kurt groaned in reply.

“Do I have to? I want to stay with Dyadya.”

“Go on, dear. I’ll tuck you in afterwards, how about that?”

Kurt thought for a second before he nodded and ran off behind his father. Raven watched them go with a fond smile on her face before she moved to join Charles on the porch swing.

“Sometimes I find it hard to believe this is your life now. You’ve got a house in the New York suburbs with a porch swing and all. It’s positively domestic.”

“I pull it off well though, don’t I?”

“Oh yeah, you’re a regular Suzy Homemaker. Minus the cooking,” Charles snorted.

“Hey, you’re worse than me!”

“At least I can bake. If you didn’t have Azazel, a third of your income would still go to takeout.”

Raven rolled her eyes and dropped her head down on his shoulder, looking up at the stars.

“So…” she dragged out, her voice full of mischief.

“So?”

“Azazel said he introduced you to Erik and you guys already knew each other. What’s that about?”

Charles tried not to tense up, but he was sure he didn’t succeed.

“We met in Germany when I was at HHU.”

“Don’t tell me he was one of your flings.”

He didn’t answer, though that said enough.

“Charles,” Raven groused, smacking his arm.

Charles winced.

“I’m a little tired of befriending people only to find out you’ve fucked them before.”

“It doesn’t happen that often.”

“Logan, Amelia, Warren, Janos, Emma—”

“Alright, alright. In my defense, all of that was ages ago. And Erik and I weren’t… it was… I mean, it was complicated.”

Raven sat up and looked down at him with scrunched eyebrows.

“Were you guys in an actual relationship or something? Because that wasn’t on brand for you back then.”

Charles bit his lip, bracing himself for Raven’s anger at him.

“Erik Lehnsherr’s my soulmate.” 

Raven gaped at him in shock and confusion before she smacked Charles’ shoulder roughly.

“Ow.”

“What the fuck, Charles!? You met your soulmate and never told me?!”

“You and I weren’t on the best of terms back then, were we?”

Raven silently conceded that point, however reluctantly.

“Truthfully, I didn’t want to talk about it to anyone given the fact that he rejected me.”

“Rejected you? What? Why?”

“He didn’t know I was baseline.”

“You didn’t tell him about…”

“No.”

Raven’s face went through a series of complicated emotions before settling on realization.

“You’re the guy.”

Charles quirked a questioning eyebrow.

“Erik told me there was a guy in college that turned out to be his soulmate. He said he rejected him for a stupid reason. He said…”

Raven trailed off, looking as if she was contemplating whether or not to continue before she came to a decision.

“He said it was his greatest regret. He said he knew almost immediately that he was wrong, he just couldn’t take it back once he said it.”

Charles gave her an incredulous look.

“ _Erik_ said that?”

Raven nodded wordlessly. Charles looked away, his mind going a mile a minute, trying to make sense of the words, turning them over for some hidden meaning.

“If he wanted to take it back, he had ample time. We saw each other often. Granted, things were unstable between us, a lot of back and forth. I was prescribed Stasix at the time so you can imagine I wasn’t in rare form back then.”

“Stasix? That banned Rejection Sickness drug?”

“Yes, that’s the one. This was back in the early 2000s. It was still experimental, a lot of the side effects weren’t known, but it was what was prescribed before Rejexar was developed.”

“Were you on Stasix when you had the accident?”

Charles nodded. Raven gave him a distinctly unhappy look.

“You should have told me about this back then. I would have at least had an idea of why you were acting the way you were.”

Charles had contemplated telling someone in his family. He had even briefly considered calling Sharon during a particularly low swing in his mood. Then he thought better of it. What would have been the point? So she could tell him that he should’ve expected no less than for his soulmate to leave him considering what a disappointment he was? Worst still that he had a same-sex soulmate and someone who was not from the same social class as he had been born into. That was still seen as unsavory and taboo in some places. The upper echelons of society never countenanced it. Same-sex soulmates or those not of equal social standing were usually immediately married off to someone of the opposite sex cut from the same cloth. Carrying on the family name and legacy through popping out children, whether they were wanted and loved or not, was paramount to families like Charles’. He was not going to sit through a lecture from his mother about what he needed to do to ensure the Xavier name and her reputation remained intact.

“It wasn’t just the Stasix and Erik. It was Kurt and Sharon and Cain and my father and even you too. I was imploding because I had buried everything inside of myself and thought if I just invented a new me, that would make all of my problems disappear. And every time they came back, I’d try to run again and reinvent myself until it just… stopped working.”

“Still, you could’ve told me recently.”

“Honestly? I’ve tried to put the whole thing from my mind. I haven’t seen or heard from him in thirteen years and the way it ended was... strange.” 

“Strange?” 

“It... we... I don’t know. It seemed like we might get past our issues and then we did but we didn’t at the same time. I don’t know. I left Düsseldorf and that was that.”

Raven took in his words before turning to face him.

“I need to know everything.”

He heaved a sigh before turning to face Raven, resolving to finally tell her what happened in Düsseldorf all those years ago.


	2. Düsseldorf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Erik meet in Düsseldorf. It doesn’t go well.

_**Then...** _

Düsseldorf was officially in Charles’ top five favorite cities. He went to school, ate good food, met cool people and listened to interesting music. Through it all, he wasn’t haunted by memories of his past around every corner. He didn’t have to sit at Christchurch Meadow and stare forlornly at the place where he and his father would play chess like he did in Oxford. He didn’t walk past rooms terrified of recalling the times Kurt had dragged him in for meetings with “people knowledgeable in ways to curb your sickness” like he did at MIT. He didn’t have to think of the time he would spend when his mother took him along with her to NYU basking in the press of people, the buzz of activity, the constellation of intelligence.

Instead, Düsseldorf was new and all his own. Partly because he was on his own, well and truly, for the first time in years. Raven was still at Charles’ apartment in Oxford, not here. That was just as well. He didn’t join the study abroad program for his graduate degree just to continue to be stuck in the cycle of companionable bonding interrupted by thunderous, explosive arguments that he had been in for months with his stepsister’s unceremonious arrival. Düsseldorf offered freedom and that was something sorely needed.

He walked through the botanical gardens of Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf towards his destination, the Jakob Lehnsherr Mutant Outreach Center just off campus. It was open to the public, but many students from the university volunteered or had families that frequented for the activities.

Charles initially started out as a volunteer, but eventually Edie hired him fulltime after seeing how personable and empathetic he was with everyone. He loved helping out the psionic children, telepaths in particular. It was a barely acknowledged truth that they got the short end of the stick, feared and hated by both humans and mutants alike for their abilities. Charles felt sorry for them every time he watched their faces fall at being rejected, even if just inadvertently. Perhaps he was projecting his own family drama on to them but, if nothing else, he liked being someone who allowed them access to his mind without making them feel like they were nefarious for doing so. Within reason. There was no point in scarring the children with his life story.

He walked into JLC, the box of pastries he held in hand steaming deliciously.

“Hey, Charles. What have you got for me today?” The girl at the front desk asked.

He gave the teen a bright smile as he plopped the box in front of her.

“Here you are, Ruth. Apricot pecan hamantasch and spinach feta tartlets I made, courtesy of Gabby’s Purim party. Enjoy.”

He watched the sixteen-year-old dig into the box for the best pickings as he glanced around the lobby. Ruth worked the center as well despite still being in secondary school, but her mother was the founder of JLC. He looked around, wondering if Ruth’s cousin, Max, was here. He and Charles had taken to innocently flirting with one another lately. Max was a bit of a jerk but flirting with him was always good fun. He turned back and let out a giggle as he saw Ruth’s cheeks puffed with food like a chipmunk.

“Don’t eat it all. There’s enough for everyone who couldn’t swing by the apartment for the party. Plus, I want Edie to taste them to make sure I didn’t butcher her recipe.”

“I still think this tastes too good to come from the goy boy who burnt ramen noodles,” the redhead quipped back after swallowing her mouthful.

Charles rolled his eyes but felt his cheeks flush.

“Gabby needs to stop telling you embarrassing stories about me.”

“If you ever came over for shabbat dinner like me and Mama keep telling you, then you could stop her.”

“Friday is study day.”

“Almost every day is study day for you. So boring. Live a little.”

“By coming over to your mother’s for dinner? Sounds like a wild night,” he replied dryly.

Ruth stuck her tongue out playfully at him and grabbed a tartlet before pushing the box back towards him.

“You really should come. A lot of the ladies from the synagogue are concerned about Gabby living with you, bunch of judgmental old bats they are.”

“Ruth!” Charles chastised.

“What? It’s true. They think you’ll defile her with your gentile ways. If you come by and flash those blue eyes, they’ll fall in love and you’ll have about ten marriage offers before you scurry back to England.”

Charles shook his head with an indulgent smile, glancing towards where an office door opened down the hall. Sabra stepped out along with a young man. At first glance, Charles thought it was Max but as he walked into the light, he was immediately struck by him. He was attractive despite the angry tilt to his features. He was lanky and tall, probably half a head over Charles if not more. His hands were big with long fingers and appeared to be strong. He couldn’t help but wonder what they would feel like. Ruth noticed his ogling and followed his gaze before her face turned up in disgust.

“Eww, Charles. Gross.”

“What? He’s hot.”

“I thought you had good taste.”

“Is he your ex or something?”

The teen gave a full body shudder as if he suggested something so objectively abhorrent that it demanded a physical response.

“HaShem, no. That’s my big brother.”

“The magnokinetic one?”

“The only one I’ve got, fortunately.”

Charles glanced at him up and down. He could see some of the similarities now that he was looking for it: auburn hair, strong jawline, the nose.

“Like most men, my brother’s great at a distance but a real dolt once he opens his mouth.”

“Hmm,” he hummed distractedly.

His eyes were drawn to the man’s small waist. He stared at it both enviously and appreciatively. He wondered what he looked like under the shirt.

“Ugh. If I introduce you, will you stop looking at him like you want to fuck him right there in the hallway?”

“No promises.”

Ruth rolled her eyes and leaned up over the desk to peer into the hallway.

“Hey, dummkopf!”

The man turned to look at them, his eyes capturing Charles’ notice. He couldn’t tell if they were green, grey or blue. They too were angry but softened when he saw it was Ruth calling him.

“Was willst du, schädling?”

“Komm und triff meinen freund. Er denkt du bist heiß, obwohl ich nicht weiß warum.”

Charles’ cheeks burned as he understood what she had said.

“Ruth,” he hissed.

She gave him an impish smirk and sat back like she was waiting for a show to start.

“Ich wusste nicht dass du freunde hast, du kleine scheiße,” the man said, his accent curling around the vowels in such a way that stoked desire in Charles’ gut.

“Mehr als du, arschloch. This is Charles Xavier. He’s a science student at HHU. He works with the psi-kids and helps Mama with organizing the field trips and outreach for volunteers. He bakes, not cooks, and has a great ass if that interests you.”

“Ruth,” he exclaimed again, hiding his face behind his hands.

The bratty sisterly teasing reminded him of the few times he got to be this way with Raven, mainly at Oxford. Except he and Ruth didn’t have the underlying tension he had with Raven, so her words didn’t sting as much or put him on the defensive.

“This is my brother, Erik. He’s a law student at HHU, a general asshole and idiot about most things, stubborn as a mule, deliberately argumentative and his smile scares young children.”

Erik rolled his eyes in response.

“Wenn er sich so lange mit dir abgefunden hat, muss er eine art heiliger sein,” Erik murmured before addressing Charles.

“Don’t mind Ruth. She lacks in social skills and areas of propriety.”

Ruth snorted and mumbled under her breath, “takes one to know one,” just as Erik stuck out his hand to greet Charles.

He couldn’t help the surprise that crossed his face. The more he adjusted to life on his own, the more he became aware of just how standoffish some mutants were about skin contact with baselines. Some already wrote off in their minds that Charles, being ordinary, couldn’t possibly be their soulmate so often neglected the basic social etiquette of a handshake. Others took the simple shaking of hands as some kind of momentous occasion.

No one really understood the mechanics of imprinting. Science tried its best to find out all of the little intricacies of the soulmate bond created through imprinting, but mysteries still laid within the phenomenon. It could happen anywhere, anytime, between any two people. Perhaps even more than two people. Having multiple soulmates wasn’t unheard of.

Sometimes it happened within days or weeks of meeting. Most often, initial physical skin-to-skin contact would immediately alert a pair to their status and then there was the bonding process through mating that bound the souls together in perpetuity.

He reached out, clasping the man’s strong hand. Just like that, the room came to a standstill. Erik’s hand was hot in his, pressing into his skin like a brand. Charles’ eyes widened as his senses went into overdrive and his heart began galloping in his chest.

“No way,” Ruth exclaimed, but her voice was small and distant. There were other voices too, but he couldn’t place them. They were barely audible over the sound of his pulse in his ears. All he could see was the green-grey of Erik’s eyes, wide with shock.

He was distantly aware of himself being moved and jostled along with Erik into a room and a door shut behind them, but he was still caught up in the other man’s disbelieving gaze. Erik pulled him close, drawing him into the heat of his body, burning like an open fire. Charles felt unsteady and small, weak under the weight of the man’s intense stare. He could feel his knees shaking and thought he might fall, but Erik’s large hands were there, holding him up by his arm and waist. The heat of his skin was unbelievable even through the light material of his jacket.

“You,” Erik murmured, his voice pitched low and gravelly.

He shivered at the sound as it bounced off his ear deliciously. Before he knew what was happening, he was pushed roughly against a wall and Erik stepped closer, crowding him against two immovable objects.

“Charles,” Erik groaned beseechingly as their bodies were pressed close.

He tipped his head up, offering himself shamelessly. The first touch of Erik’s lips on his was like being swept up by a powerful riptide, drawn along helplessly, fighting for air but unable to breathe. He desperately clung to Erik, opening his lips and sucking in his sweet taste.

Distantly, Charles knew what this meant. When he was young, he would read and listen to stories about imprinting. His father made it sound lovely and innocuous, watering it down for a child’s understanding. After Brian died, Charles didn’t care much about imprinting, not when the phenomena could decide on the one hand that Sharon and Brian were soulmates and then decide on the other that she and Kurt Marko were as well.

Despite his disillusionment, nothing could’ve prepared him for the hot press of Erik’s body, the overwhelming need to be close, to drag Erik down and let himself be dragged down in turn. It drove him to grind against the other man desperately, to pant into Erik’s mouth and whine at every touch of his hot, slick tongue.

Erik was touching him everywhere, trapping him between himself and the wall, not that Charles had any objection to that. Still, it wasn’t enough. He needed to touch flesh, to kiss and worship the tapestry of Erik’s body. He needed to be marked, bitten, held down and fucked. He moaned unashamedly at the image, clawing at Erik’s broad shoulders. The man broke the kiss, panting with the effort.

“You’re coming back to my apartment.”

“Yes,” Charles replied breathlessly even though it wasn’t a question.

Erik chuckled lowly, his hands ranging over Charles’ hips to pull them closer to his, drawing a needy whine from the shorter man.

“Who knew I was going to find you here? Mama didn’t tell me she hired another mutant, let alone a telepath.”

Charles tensed in his arms reflexively, half of his attention on Erik’s wandering hands but the other half stuck on his words.

“I’m not.”

“Not?”

“I’m not a telepath.”

“An empath then? Telekinetic? Pre-cog?”

“I’m not a mutant.”

“What?”

He whined involuntarily at the loss of contact as Erik wrenched himself away. He was looking at Charles like he was some alien thing he couldn’t comprehend.

 _So, we’re doing it this way_ , he thought to himself.

There was a lot of presumption about his genotype at Oxford due to his family connections: his father founding a company that catered heavily to mutants, his mother with her name on multiple mutant scholarships and charities, his stepsister being a mutant. People were surprised to learn Charles was baseline. There were rumors, they said. He had to preface those sexual encounters with the confirmation of his ordinariness, despite how much it rankled to do so.

“I said I’m baseline. No special abilities or powers other than my above average IQ. Is that a problem?”

“A problem? I’d say so, yes. I can’t have imprinted with a human. It’s impossible.”

Charles frowned in response.

“It’s entirely possible. The official qualifier aside, mutants aren’t a different species. They’re human as well, they just have a few more active genes.”

“I know that,” Erik snapped back in agitation.

“So, what’s the problem then?”

“I can’t be with a human.”

“What are you saying,” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“I’m saying I don’t want this.”

He was staring at him like he was some disgusting creature, anger written all over his handsome face. Charles felt hurt replacing the desire inside of him.

“We’ve imprinted. We’re soulmates. I know you want me too. I can feel it. You can’t deny it. It’s in our nature. I’m as much a part of your DNA as your x-gene is,” he argued back, trying to make Erik see sense.

“No. Mutants are more than mere biology or chemistry. We’re not just a few more active genes. We are the future, not humans.”

Charles inhaled a sharp breath as Erik laid out his views and he realized what the schism between them stemmed from.

“Erik, are you— are you rejecting me,” he asked, disbelief and hurt dripping from the words.

The man stared down at him, his jaw set resolutely as he took a few stuttering steps backwards. Their bodies were calling out for each other, demanding consummation of their bond even as Erik denied them both of it. Charles was aware things would get bad quickly if they left one another imprinted but unbound as Erik appeared to want. Charles gave him an imploring look. As the other man set his jaw and leveled him with an uncompromising gaze, he knew what he was going to say even before he said it.

“I don’t want you.”

It felt like being punched in the gut and slapped in the face all at once. The statement sent his insides and senses into a tizzy, twisting in on themselves painfully. Even though the bond was going through some kind of breakdown at Erik’s rebuff, beneath it he could still feel the lust pushing him towards his soulmate who did not want him. He had faced rejection and abandonment in his life from his mother, his stepfather, his siblings, but his soulmate was supposed to be different. He was supposed to care about him, love him. He was meant to be the one person in the world he could rely on and instead he was leaving him adrift in the world alone, apparently, for the sake of his pride.

He gritted his teeth and stood up straighter. He forcibly grabbed on to all his hurt and turned it into anger.

“Fine. I’m probably better off without you if this conversation is any indication. I assume this is what you do. You look at people and, regardless of whether they do anything to earn your blatant disregard, you throw them away. You leave them behind just so you can save face. Can’t have the embarrassment of human connections to contradict your anti-human rhetoric, can you? Fucking hypocrite. I wouldn’t want you even if my only options were you and a fucking cactus. Although, the cactus would probably have more intellect and personality.”

With one last furious look, Charles pushed past Erik and bolted for the door, leaving the other man seething in his wake. As he stepped out of the room, a wave of dizziness hit him. Pressure was building in his head and his heart was racing but he pushed through it and stalked furiously towards the exit. As he passed, he saw Ruth, Max and Sabra standing by the desk, chatting. They looked at him with confusion as he appeared.

“Charles, where’s Erik?” Ruth asked, bewildered.

“You were right. Your brother is an idiot and an asshole,” he replied, walking out of the building and into the chilly day.

~*~*~

Charles hated hospitals. Hospitals reminded him both of his father and his stepfather. He couldn’t help but to think of Brian on his deathbed at the mansion, his pain-wracked body small under the sheets with all the wires and machines attached to him. He thought of Kurt bringing him and Cain to the lab in the basement to see his experiments, his mother’s new husband desecrating the workspace with his profane “scientific advancement”. Unfortunately for Charles, fainting only minutes after you walk into your apartment warrants your roommate racing you to the emergency room.

After he had left JLC, his righteous fury at Erik’s rejection carried him halfway home, stomping and cursing, heedless of curious passersby until the effect of the incomplete bond caught up with him. His head was pounding, his limbs felt like they were on fire and his stomach was turning violently. He began sweating despite the cool weather of March and felt a fever setting in the farther away from Erik he stumbled. He was practically crawling by the time he managed to drag himself up the stairs towards the apartment he shared with Gabrielle, an exchange student from Israel.

She opened the door after several unsuccessful attempts on his part to put the key in the hole. She took one look at him and grew alarmed.

“What happened to you? I thought you were working.”

He stumbled past her to the kitchen in desperate search of water, anything to quench the cloying thirst rising inside him alongside the unbearable fire.

“Had to leave,” he answered shortly.

“Why?”

“I imprinted with someone,” he replied between gulps of water.

“What? That’s great. But then why are you here?”

“He didn’t know I was human.”

“So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Everything. He doesn’t want me. The great Erik Lehnsherr can’t imprint with a human.”

“Erik is your soulmate?”

“Regrettably.”

Gabrielle’s face went through a series of complicated emotions before she looked back at him while he began splashing water on his face.

“Are you sure it wasn’t because you’re both guys? People can still be hardheaded about that.”

“Gabby, I know what happened and why. There was little subtext to be found in our conversation.”

“So, what? He just left you?”

“I left after he made it clear he was rejecting me.”

“He said that to you?”

Charles nodded and then doubled over, clutching his stomach with a moan of pain. Gabrielle was immediately by his side, holding him up.

“You’re burning up and you can barely stand. Goodness, I know Erik has been through a lot, but he can’t just abandon you,” she said, mumbling the last bit to herself.

Charles was going to ask what she meant but a sharp wave of pain overtook him and then the next he knew, the room was tilting, Gabrielle was exclaiming in alarm and he was seeing black.

He awoke in the hospital hours later. Rejection Sickness, according to the doctors. Permanent unless he completed the bond with his soulmate or found another soulmate to bond with. In the absence of those two, he would have to take medicine for the rest of his life to keep him balanced. The doctor went on a long spiel about how far medications for RS had come and that even though the latest drugs were still experimental, they showed great promise. He was prescribed Stasix, left with a novel’s worth of pamphlets about RS and recommendations for therapy.

“I’ve tried calling Erik, but he hasn’t answered. Ruth says he’s in the same boat, but he won’t come complete the bond. He’s so damned stubborn and prideful,” Gabrielle groused beside him after the doctor left.

Charles felt strange. The underlying need to bond with Erik was not erased despite the Stasix, it was only dulled, repressed enough that he could function. He could feel it in the back of his head though, a constant throbbing. If he dwelled on it, the sensation grew and became like a deep gnawing in his gut, leaving him blanketed with a general feeling of discontent, unease, unfulfillment, yearning for something he could not have. Still, he waved a dismissive hand.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t want him to come here.”

“You heard the doctor, Charles. If you guys don’t bond, you’ll be taking these RS pills for the rest of your life. Who knows what other side effects it’ll have on you? I haven’t heard anything good about prolonged bouts of RS. The people who have it deal with mental health issues for the rest of their lives.”

“I’m already dealing with mental health issues. This is just another thing to add to the pile. I’m not going to go crawling to him. I’m not giving him the satisfaction of seeing me broken or on my knees.”

Gabrielle shot him an incredulous look.

“Charles, this could determine the rest of your life. It’s not about pride. It’s about your health. Who knows if you have another soulmate out there or if you’ll ever meet them? Erik is an ass, but he isn’t cruel. If he sees what this is doing to you—”

“I will not beg.”

Gabrielle let out an exasperated sigh.

“It seems you two really were made for each other. You’re both mulish idiots.”

“Maybe, but I’m not going to be made to feel like there’s something wrong with me just because of my genotype. Not again. If he wants to be a prejudiced asshole, he can be. I’m not stopping him.”

She gave him a tentative look and before she spoke, he knew what she was going to say.

“No.”

“If you told him—”

“No.”

“—it might change how he sees things.”

“No. I’m not telling some stranger about that.”

“You told me.”

“One: I was ridiculously shit-faced. Two: you weren’t a stranger, I knew you for months by then. Three: I actually trust you. I’m not giving that part of myself away to him, not after he rejected me.”

“He rejected you, most likely, because he believes you don’t know what it’s like to be different, to be a mutant. He doesn’t think you have the experience to understand some of the worst things he’s faced. If you tell him the truth, if he sees it’s not that simple, maybe he’ll come back, and you can complete the bond. You’ll be better. Both of you will.”

“It’s not happening, Gabby. If I have to tell him about that for him to come back, then I don’t want him to.”

She gave him a searching look before her face slipped into a blank mask.

“Fine,” she said simply, her face still unreadable.

In that moment, he wished he could press into her mind, glean her thoughts, read the origins behind her expression, understand what was really going on inside her mind. It was as futile a wish as his longing for his soulmate was, it seemed.

~*~*~

Charles didn’t return to school or JLC for a week on his doctor’s recommendation. Instead, he laid around the apartment working on homework and trying to ignore the gnawing in the back of his head. Gabrielle was on hand to help him with whatever he wanted but he largely denied needing her assistance, not willing to appear helpless. Eventually, she got fed up and wordlessly did whatever he was unable to do for himself.

His professors were understanding of the situation, as much of it as Charles deigned to explain, and given his track record they allowed him to hand in his work via Gabrielle. As for JLC, Edie had personally visited him on the third day he spent home. He did not immediately know she was there. Time felt strange lately. He would slip away inside himself for minutes to hours. The doctors claimed it was normal as one adjusted to the medication he was taking, but it would get better with time. As Edie entered the living room, Charles had been staring sightlessly ahead at the blank television screen for nearly twenty minutes. He didn’t snap out of it until she shook him, causing him to start and look around before his eyes landed on her worried features.

“I was calling your name. Are you alright?”

Charles rubbed a hand over his face, pushing his hair out of his eyes in the process.

“I’m fine.”

Edie gave him a doubtful look as she sat down carefully beside him. She placed a hand to his forehead and looked him over with a critical eye.

“Du siehst schlimmer aus als Erik,” she muttered to herself.

Charles gave her an embittered smile.

“I’d imagine no less. He’s the one who did the rejecting.”

Edie pursed her lips unhappily.

“I wanted to see how you were. Gabby has kept us updated but everyone at JLC has been worried for you.”

Charles huffed, annoyed that Erik’s abandonment was now public knowledge. His personal life was probably privy to everyone he spent even a small amount of time with. Too many students from HHU worked at JLC for Erik’s actions to not have spread. Hell, maybe he had gone off bragging about how he had rejected his silly human soulmate.

“Schatz, I want you to know that despite what happened, you are still welcome at the center. Everyone there considers you family, including me. It may be a lot to ask for, but I would love it if you stayed.”

Charles glanced up at the older woman, conflicted. He didn’t want to see Erik. Then again, he had been at JLC for months and only just encountered him. The work he was doing was important. He enjoyed it and he helped others in the process. But could he chance running into Erik and having to confront everything he represented? He was every worst-case scenario Sharon had assured Charles of made manifest. She had told him he wasn’t destined for love, that people would always find him lacking if he didn’t change himself to suit what they wanted. Now, Erik had proven her right.

No, Charles refused to let her be. There was something stronger inside of him that he had used to survive the hell Sharon allowed Kurt to put him through, the hell she had put him through. He had cultivated it for years, ever since the first time his mother rebuffed his affection and looked at him like he was an invader, someone to compete with for Brian’s attention and love rather than something she and her soulmate had created, something that could manifest as an extension of their bond. This nameless thing had carried him from Westchester to Oxford and then Düsseldorf. Erik couldn’t take it from him, not after barely five minutes of interaction, soulmate or not. Being in this city was the first time he’d felt truly content some place since his father died. Düsseldorf was his.

He agreed to stay at JLC and accepted the hug Edie gave him. The older woman proceeded to fuss over him for a few hours, making him food, running her fingers through his hair and then sending him to bed. He would’ve protested if it was anyone else, but he needed to be coddled for a while. No one from his family would do it. Sharon and Kurt wouldn’t care, Cain couldn’t and even if he could, that wasn’t they approach they took with one another. Raven…

He thought of telling Raven about Erik. They had conversations over the phone, stilted and heavy with words unsaid, but he never brought up what happened. Somehow telling her felt wrong, like he was giving her a piece of himself that he would rather keep away from her.

Raven existed in a strange space for him. He tried to delineate his life in sections: Westchester Charles, Oxford Charles and Düsseldorf Charles. Westchester Charles was a boy he wanted to bury and pretend never existed at all. Being Oxford Charles was a matter of survival, but Raven’s abrupt arrival resurrected Westchester Charles. When he did rear his head, he wasn’t just the timid, shy, broken boy drifting through a mansion where he felt unwelcomed, he was a boy who suffused himself through Charles in a way where he had no choice but to feel small and helpless and unworthy beside Raven, who delighted in being her authentic self in Oxford, wild and uninhibited and _blue_. It was infuriating.

He tried to keep his anger from her, but it showed. He had to leave Oxford, had to evolve into something new, so he became Düsseldorf Charles. This new version of him was fledgling and still trying to find his feet, trying to find a way to live comfortably in his skin. He didn’t want to share it with anyone from his past. He didn’t trust anyone with it, not even Raven. He chastised himself for the feeling, but it didn’t change.

Exactly a week after Charles met Erik, he found himself once more walking across the botanical gardens towards JLC. He was nowhere near the chipper person who all but skipped towards the building last week. He was tired, had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was not well kept. The feelings that he had since he started taking the RS pills did not dull or go away: the disinterest, the general feeling of discontent and undertone of melancholy. Still, he pasted on as realistic a smile as he could as he walked into the center.

Ruth’s eyes widened as she saw him and she popped up from her seat, making a beeline for him. Before he could get a word out, her arms were flung around him. Charles froze, taken aback at the teen’s action and the fact that she seemed to be crying.

“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault. If I never introduced you— I’m so sorry, Charles.”

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her.

“It’s not your fault. If you didn’t introduce us, we’d have met some other way. Erik’s decision is not on you. You don’t have to feel guilty about it.”

He pulled back from the embrace and wiped her face with his sleeve. Her cheeks were red and her mouth was set in an angry pout.

“He’s such an idiot. I haven’t spoken to him since it happened.”

“He’s your brother.”

“And he did a horrible thing. He hurt you all because he’s angry at someone else. I’m not going to speak to him until he apologizes to you and explains himself.”

Charles sighed again but he was secretly pleased with her support.

“Is he...?”

Ruth shook her head.

“No. He had a Brotherhood meeting.”

“He’s part of the Brotherhood?”

“He founded the Brotherhood.”

“Of course,” he scoffed, thinking of the group at HHU who took over part of the quad on a weekly basis to preach mutant supremacy. Charles had had a few unsavory run-ins with members, but he never noticed Erik among them.

“The psi-kids are all gathered. They’ve missed you, same as everyone else.”

Charles nodded and pasted another smile on his face. This would be okay. He could do this. He could hang out with the children and his friends at JLC like nothing had happened and he would be fine. He would go back to pretending Erik didn’t exist and be all the better for it.

He walked down the hall towards where all the psi-kids would be. As he continued, where before he would have gotten happier the closer to the room he got, it was not so today. There was an enduring sadness rippling under every thought he had, a sense of emptiness that lingered just below the surface, a darkness and doom that hovered over his head like an ominous cloud just wanting to burst forth with a torrential downpour.

Charles grit his teeth and resolved to ignore it. He was always good at hiding his own emotions when necessary. He’d had a lot of practice. Stiff upper lip, Mother would say. One must appear unflappable, otherwise invite criticism and that would not do. He didn’t think he was going to have to pull that skill out here in Düsseldorf, this place he made his own. He wanted it to still be his. He wanted to still be the Charles he was before he met Erik. If the closest he could get was pretending, then that was what he would do. He didn’t have another choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoy. I feel the need to stipulate now that I can’t commit to a regular posting schedule. I haven’t finished writing the story yet, so this posting could undergo drastic changes in the future.


	3. A Truce

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles begins to reckon with Erik’s place in his life while problems from outside of Düsseldorf begin to bleed in.

**_Then…_ **

After their initial meeting, Charles ran into Erik more than he would have liked. Suddenly, he was aware of him around campus, at JLC and saw him at the local deli and grocery stores. Every interaction was a knife in the gut. Erik was stoic and intractable but there was a pull to him that he could not shake. When they encountered one another though, more often than not they met each other with stony silence, or it devolved into an argument.

Seeing Erik as an asshole was easy. He knew how to respond to that. The worse was when he saw him at JLC. He was softer, understanding and caring with the young mutants. He was even polite to the baseline parents. Charles was curious why strangers could exist in an area of grey, as obstinate and mulish as Erik was, but his soulmate couldn’t. Ultimately, the answer didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change anything.

Charles banished the thoughts with a shake of his head as he continued to jog down the trail. This was not an activity he regularly indulged in. He preferred to be in a lab and had since childhood, likely a result of his relationship with his father. Now, he felt he needed to do something different to channel the suppressed energy thrumming through his veins from the Rejection Sickness. The burning in his muscles and lungs and the sweat running down his skin offered a sufficient distraction.

He was going down a trail, music playing in one ear, when he ran right into Erik. They stopped on the path and stared at one another. Charles wasn’t sure what to do. His insides were a riot. They always were when he was around Erik. It was strange. Ever since he started taking Stasix, every part of him was subdued. It was akin to floating a few inches above a vast void. He had consulted his doctors and they recommended therapy with concerns over depression, but he declined. He survived his stepfather without having to sit on a shrink’s couch, he could survive this. As much as Erik hurt him, he wasn’t Marko.

With that in mind, he took a breath and turned to walk in the opposite direction. He wasn’t expecting Erik to say anything to him, so he was taken aback when the magnokinetic followed him.

“Where are you going?”

He glanced back and quirked an eyebrow, not slowing stride.

“Away from you.”

“I want to say something to you.”

“I thought you said everything you needed to say.”

“I apologize.”

Charles paused and turned to look at Erik incredulously.

“What?”

“I said I apologize.”

He blinked owlishly at the other man, thrown for a loop.

“For what exactly?”

Erik stood up straighter as he peered down at him.

“Ruth has taken to lecturing me incessantly. I admit I could’ve exhibited more finesse. For that, I apologize.”

“Is that why you think I’m pissed off, because you didn’t let me down gentler,” Charles deadpanned in reply.

Erik looked at him with narrowed eyes.

“I won’t apologize for rejecting you. I have a calling higher than one German city.”

He spoke as if there was something wrong with Düsseldorf, though Charles couldn’t think what that would be. This place had become a haven for him and thus had been venerated in his mind.

“Once I understood the lengths humans would go to in order to destroy us, I made the decision to be an instrument for mutantkind. That hasn’t changed in eight years and it won’t now. I know I have to prepare for the war to come.”

Charles rolled his eyes as he turned back towards the trail.

“You sound like every anti-mutant prick in the quad with a megaphone.”

He jumped as his watch started vibrating on his wrist and he was dragged towards Erik by the accessory, tripping over his feet until he was caught by the shoulder and held roughly.

“What did you just say to me,” Erik snarled.

Charles swallowed to moisten his dry throat, but lifted his head, refusing to be cowed.

“I said you sound like everyone you claim to be better than. How does it make sense to you to spew the same rhetoric of men you condemn?”

“Men who have actively tried their hands at exterminating people like me. I’m not like them.”

“I didn’t say you were. I said you sound like them. There is another way but you’re blind to it because you want to believe that all humans are against mutants, just like the people you hate believe all mutants are against humans. Your mother and sister are human. Do you think they’re inferior, that they should be dominated under some mutant overlord’s boot?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What are you saying then? What do you actually want?”

“I want to strike against an enemy before we’re blindsided.”

“You want to start a war that may never be,” he clarified.

“This _is_ war. It’s already here. We’re battening down our hatches, taking stock of our arsenals. If you think you’re not in it, I don’t know where you’ve been or what you’re doing here. Take one good look at the city around you and you’ll see the scars of a war that’s already being fought.”

“I have no idea what you’re—”

“Of course you don’t. You’re human, so you don’t have to face the same things that mutants do. You have the luxury of talking in hypotheticals about problems mutants everywhere already face. Mutants are discriminated against for housing opportunities, school admissions, government benefits. The list goes on and on. Not to mention those killed for being different. That’s happening all around the world.”

“I’ve never disputed that. Disparities in the system are many and storied. To act as if they don’t exist is to be willfully blind, but I don’t see how you can bridge a gap created by hatred and fear with more of the same. Things are better now than they were fifty years ago or even five years ago.”

Erik rolled his eyes and moved to walk away, but Charles held him in place so he could get his point across.

“More progress is needed, and it is paramount that we get there if society is to stand a chance, but the world is changing and people are learning. They’re accepting the differences in the population more every day. A future can exist of mutant/human harmony borne of acceptance, of knowledge, of growth leading to trust and an equal exchange where both sides gain something.”

“Not all humans think that’s true. And if you believe it’ll be that easy, then you are hopelessly naïve. The humans in power will not simply allow beings as powerful as mutants to roam with no governmental oversight. Even if they did, do you think that would prevent more like the Church of Homo Sapiens from popping up? The Friends of Humanity? There are groups worldwide just waiting to take advantage of vulnerable mutants. I know what it means to be at the mercy of men who look at me and my kind and see animals. I’m done being told to go higher than them and turn the other cheek.”

Deep down, he understood Erik’s point much more intimately than he could imagine. However, he couldn’t let himself fall into that trap. In his experience, the only thing that laid down that path was a never-ending pit of anger and pain. It wasn’t the constructive kind of fury or hurt, it was the kind that made him burn bridges before turning that rage inwards on himself. It was the kind that nearly killed him before. He couldn’t let it get that bad again.

“I’m not stupid enough to think a harmonious existence will equate to a utopia and you’re not stupid enough to think some superwar is going to lead to a mutant world with no conflict. It’s impossible. It’s the human condition. Mutants are not precluded from that just because of a few activated genes.”

“Is all of this about science to you? You think you can boil people down to chromosomes and that’s it? You think the world could ever be that simple?”

“I think that to allow chromosomes to cause such a division amongst our species is no less naïve than seeing an alternate path towards peace. We’re all part of the homo genus. We’re all humans. There’s more that brings us together than separates us.”

Erik narrowed his eyes. Charles let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t know why he was putting himself on the line here. He didn’t forgive easily anymore. He held grudges, as evidenced with Raven. Except his relationship with his sister wasn’t the same as it was with Erik. There was a pull not entirely of his own making causing him to yearn for him like he’d never wanted anything before. There was too much he couldn’t say though, too many parts of himself he couldn’t trust with Erik.

“You have the power to do so much better. I’ve seen you at JLC. I’ve seen you working with people, counseling baseline parents through difficult times, helping children feel better about themselves as mutants, teaching them and helping them grow. That is more powerful and useful towards building a future than battening down hatches or taking stock of arsenals. That is the path to peace. Trust me when I say I understand just how awful things can get when people aren’t accepted by their families, by the world, even by themselves. I want to make things better, make the world a safer place for everyone. We could do that together.”

Erik looked like he was absorbing Charles’ words but after a moment his face hardened.

“Peace was never an option.”

**~*~*~**

Following their run in at the park, Charles tried to steer clear of Erik. They still saw each other at JLC and on campus. Charles was more than happy to get into debates with him. Once they had argued for thirty minutes straight after he happened upon the Brotherhood giving out pamphlets. The encounters set his blood on fire. He didn’t know if he wanted to choke Erik or kiss him. Probably both. He would soothe himself with the notion that he didn’t have a choice.

Lust was something he had been deferring since he met Erik. There were people he encountered that had he been in Oxford, he would’ve jumped at the chance to flirt with them using his pick-up lines which Raven panned as corny. Something always stopped him.

Eventually, he decided he didn’t owe his chastity to anyone and he started going out again. The interactions with his paramours caused sparks of interest and feeling that the Stasix previously suppressed. He was good at sex and meaningless flings had never been an issue for him, but even when his partner was talented, there was a part of him left unfulfilled, which only increased his ire towards Erik.

The tension between them didn’t go unnoticed. There was a choosing of sides between their friends at JLC. Charles seemed to have gotten Ruth, Max and Gabrielle in the schism while Erik got Sabra, Esther and Judah. Everyone else tried to remain neutral, especially Edie. Charles could not hide what had been going on between him and Erik from her and she had called him into her office one day to talk about it.

He stared down at the metal statuettes on her desk. Now that he was aware of their origins, he realized that each was lined up in a way that showed off Erik’s progressing control of his ability. Edie kept them all, the one that looked like a misshapen hunk of metal straight up to the intricately engraved figurine of a phoenix. Charles had to admit to himself that they were well done.

He glanced up at the older Jewish woman where she sat behind her desk. There was a maternal smile on her lips. Sincerity practically wafted off the woman. It was almost as if she secreted it from her pores, a hidden mutation all on its own.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time Erik manifested?”

Charles shook his head silently.

“It was during dinner when he was ten years old. My husband had this aunt. I never liked her myself, but Erik despised her. All because of crayons, if you can believe that. She threw away a boxset that his uncle bought for him. It was the 64-pack assortment, you see. If there is one thing my son can do, it’s hold a grudge. From then on, she was on his list. She came over one week and seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot with Ruth. She was only three, but everything she did seemed offensive to that woman.”

Edie waved her hand with a dismissive eye roll, silently stating her stance on things.

“We were saying prayer before we ate but apparently Ruth wasn’t standing straight enough for Jakob’s aunt, so she pinched her. Next thing I knew, my candleholder was flying across the room towards the woman. Jakob managed to bat it out of the air before it sailed straight into her face, but we also had metal chalices filled with wine on the table. She was wearing a light-colored dress. Suffice to say the stains didn’t come out for anything in the world.”

Edie paused to shake her head fondly, reminiscing on this moment with a small smile. Charles could feel one tugging on his lip in response, but he quickly let it slip away.

“For a long time, Erik’s power only worked when he was angry. He had a lot of reasons to be. I’ve spent more days than I ever wanted trying to placate my son and brace him against the prejudice of others. I couldn’t protect him completely. I don’t begrudge him his anger, but I wanted him to know he could use his powers to create as well, thus these sculptures. It doesn’t make the anger disappear, but it helps a little. I think. I hope.”

Charles watched Edie’s face, her eyebrows furrowed as she thought of her son. She was much more charitable about it all than he was.

“Don’t you ever get angry?”

“At the world? Always.”

“Hang the world, I mean Erik. Doesn’t he infuriate you? Don’t you get pissed that he can look at you and still see you as the enemy? Don’t you ever want to knock him upside the head when he’s talking about some stupid war?”

“Oh, all the time and I do when it’s necessary, but I’m happy that he has his Brotherhood. It may be hard for you to imagine, but before them, he was even angrier. He lost control of his powers all the time and it landed him in trouble. The authorities threatened to take him away from me. A human mother shouldn’t be raising a mutant son, he should be with his own kind, they said. With the Brotherhood, he has something to channel his emotions into. At the end of the day, I know where his feelings come from and it’s not from a place of prejudice or hatred. It’s a place of fear, pain and grief.”

Charles studied Edie as those same emotions gleamed briefly in her eyes. He recognized the look. It passed through the Lehnsherr family periodically along with several others at JLC and HHU. Charles didn’t know the origins of it. It was some cultural or regional grief that he was not privy to. Edie snapped out of it and looked at him with a sad smile.

“Erik’s right to anger doesn’t invalidate yours though, schatz. You get to be angry at him if you want. You can even hate him. It’s not my place to say you can’t. I hoped things would be different when he met his soulmate. I’m sorry what’s happened in the past has bled over to hurt you. I would ask you one thing. Give Erik time. You don’t owe it to him and you don’t have to agree with my request, but I think he needs to be what he is now so he can grow into what he’s meant to be. I think you do too. Both of you boys can be great. I think that’s why you are soulmates. Give Erik a chance, he’ll show you who he really is.”

Charles wanted to tell her he already knew who Erik was: an angry asshole screaming at the void with no inclination to do anything else. He hadn’t shown him much more dimension to his character so far. They never progressed past intransigence, not until one night as he was on his way to some kind of memorial Edie invited him to. Charles had ended up walking alone and got lost on the way, his zooming thoughts locked on an argument he had had with Raven and then Gabrielle before he left his apartment.

Gabrielle was worried about him and it made her hover, a lot. The RS pills took so much out of him and confined him to bed at times. He wasn’t enjoying the things he used to as much. Some days, mundane activities were a chore. He had stopped telling his doctors about the new changes to his mood. He was getting tired of them droning on and on about the same things. He didn’t need a therapist. He wasn’t any more or less depressed and anxious than he was before. If he could manage to compartmentalize everything that had happened in Westchester, he could certainly do it with this situation. It wasn’t nearly as bad. Erik had embarrassed him and hurt his feelings, but he hadn’t done a third of what Kurt had done to him or been as damaging to his self-esteem as Sharon.

Still, Charles was on edge which was probably why he reacted so poorly to Raven’s phone call. He tried to keep such events short, but if he didn’t make an effort to contact her, he would build it up in his head and stress about it. He tried to call every week but meeting Erik had thrown him off-kilter and he had let three weeks go by. She was angry about it and instead of being apologetic, he got angry in turn. Then she switched gears to trying to convince him to join her on a trip to Westchester because, apparently, she was beginning to mend her relationship with their parents. Months after she had breezed into Oxford swearing up and down that she hated Sharon and Kurt’s elitist guts and complaining that they only stifled her from being who she truly was, now she wanted to reconcile because Kurt informed her that he was terminally ill.

What was Charles supposed to do? Be grieved on his behalf? Kurt treated him like trash for as long as he had known him. He would be lying if he said his stepfather’s diagnosis didn’t feel like karmic justice. Still, thinking on it now, he might have overreacted.

“Dad wants to see us both. He’s in close proximity to Cain, but we’re an ocean away. He wants his family with him. It looks like this might be the end,” Raven had informed him.

“I’m not his bloody family,” he had scoffed in reply.

“Don’t do this right now. Just please. He has some things to say to you.”

“I do not care what that man has to say to me. I’m not going to be merciful now just because he’s dying. Good bloody riddance.”

“How can you say that,” she gasped.

“Without any difficulty, I assure you.”

“What happened to you, what my dad did… it was an accident, Charles. Half the time, you hated being—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence. What I hated was being abhorred in my own home by my family and looked at as an invader even by my sister, who was supposed to understand what it meant to be unordinary, but still looked at me like I was wrong.” 

“You know I tried but it was... different.”

“Different,” he had repeated dubiously. 

“You know what I mean! That’s not the point. The point is, Dad made a mistake. A terrible, awful mistake that changed the course of your life forever and he can’t take it back. He regrets it and he wants to tell you that face to face. I think the least you can do is visit him while he’s on his deathbed as he’s asked.”

“Yes, because the onus is on me to overextend myself to absolve an abusive man of his sins before he goes off to meet his maker. No thanks.” 

“It’s a small thing, one little thing. It’s not even for him, do it for me. You don’t have to mean it, just say the words.”

“Why is it so important for you again? You ran across an ocean to escape him and Sharon and now you’re back to being daddy’s little princess. Mutant and proud, was it? That didn’t last very long.”

“He’s my father! He’s not always right, but we’ve talked about our issues over the last few months like normal people do. We haven’t acted like they never happened, or run away, or tried to chase them away with sex and liquor. Forgiveness is healthy. I’m not wrong for forgiving him for making a mistake. A horrible one, but a mistake nonetheless. It’s what you do with family. You can be mad at me for feeling the way I do if you want to, but I remember what you did to Cain all too well.”

“That’s not fair.”

“It was a mistake, you mean? Like my father made a mistake?”

“You have no idea what happened and I’m not going to put on some show of forgiveness for that man. As far as I’m concerned, he can rot in hell.”

He had hung up then, fuming. He tried so hard not to think of Westchester. There was no point. There was too much there that only served to pain him and now Raven brought it all back, all the things that had led him to run away and cut that part of his life out like rotted flesh. He could not help but to think of his childhood, spent intimately aware that Sharon would compare Charles and Raven and find him wanting. And the jealousy that that inspired… heavens, Charles didn’t realize the pall of darkness that it casted over him until he had extricated himself from the situation.

There was also the fact that Kurt didn’t treat her the way he did Charles and Cain. Charles was glad of it. He would never have wanted to see Raven sitting in that cold, sterile room in the manor’s basement, terrified of what new torture was coming next like the boys had to face. Still, as much as he was happy about her ignorance, he was simultaneously angered that she couldn’t see the truth for herself. It was unfair but knowing that fact didn’t change how he felt.

He had glanced towards his door as a knock came and Gabrielle popped her head inside.

“Hey, just making sure you’re alive in here.”

“Unfortunately.”

“You’re such a drama queen,” she had groused, rolling her eyes as she entered the room and climbed on the bed, throwing an arm and a leg over his body. Charles turned his head a bit, the fragrance of Gabrielle’s shampoo wafting into his nose. He settled in comfortably. He couldn’t help but to think he couldn’t be like this with Raven. She was his sister and yet there was always some level of contention that wouldn’t allow him to completely relax with her. It wasn’t like that with Gabrielle or Ruth or Sabra.

He acknowledged that that was partly his fault, a holdover from childhood grievances. He couldn’t help the jealousy back then. There was no time that he could remember, even when his father was alive, that his mother treated him with half as much affection as she did Raven. He hadn’t been able to help the flush of anger in him back then that this girl he didn’t know could swoop in and steal the mother he never got a chance to have. He barely got any of Sharon’s attention and then he had to share it.

He tried to be magnanimous and tell himself it wasn’t fair to be angry. Raven wanted a mother desperately after losing hers when she was a toddler. She was willing to have one at the expense of her own identity. Charles couldn’t blame her. If there was anything he could do to win Sharon’s regard, he’d have done it.

His and Raven’s relationship hadn’t ever evolved from its fraught beginnings, no matter how much he wanted it. And he did want it, it was just hard to remind himself of that sometimes, especially when it came to Sharon and Kurt.

“What are you thinking about?”

“My sister.”

“Ahh.”

“Yeah.”

“Another argument?”

“She wants me to go with her back to New York and tell Marko that I forgive him for everything he did. Obviously, we got into an argument.”

“I don’t know why you always let it come to that.”

“Me,” he had exclaimed indignantly.

“Yeah, you. You’ve got so much anger about everything that happened with your family and you won’t talk to your sister about it, but you still manage to take it out on her. And you know that’s true, so I don’t want to hear any BS about it.”

“I…” Charles trailed off with a sigh.

“I’m trying, Gabby. I really am.”

“Are you? Have you had a frank conversation and told her what happened to you and Cain?”

Charles remained stubbornly silent in response.

“She doesn’t know what happened because you haven’t told her. How long is she supposed to keep going along with your feelings in obscurity when you won’t explain the reasons behind it, especially when on the other side, she’s got her father whose dying?”

“Even if she doesn’t know everything, she knows enough to know that asking me to tell him that I forgive him is one of the most selfish things she could’ve done.”

“I’m pretty sure she would say that you running off to Germany and leaving her alone after she came to you for comfort was one of the most selfish things you’ve ever done.”

“Whose side are you on? You’re _my_ friend, in case you forgot.”

“I am and I love you. But I’ve also only been your friend for less than a year. She’s been your sister for nine years and I know more about what really went on in your house than she does.”

“If she had asked back then—”

“You wouldn’t have told her because you tried to protect her. She’s asking now and you won’t tell her because you’re trying to protect yourself. You’re not wrong for that. All I’m saying is you can’t be mad at her for forgiving him when you refuse to tell her what she should be holding a grudge against him for.” 

“I know that, Gabby. Knowing it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t help me not be angry.”

“Talking about it might.”

Charles cut a side-eye at her.

“We are not going there.”

“A competent, trained therapist—”

“Enough. I don’t need a shrink,” he cut her off, moving to stand up but she caught his arm.

“I see you, Charles. I see the way you’re walking around here. It’s not just Erik. It’s been there from before, this hole that you’re trying to bury inside of yourself—”

“I’m not—”

“You are! You’re not okay. You haven’t been okay since I met you. You can only ignore this thing inside of you and distract yourself with other things for so long. I mean, hell, even if Erik hadn’t rejected you, there’s no way you would’ve been ready for that kind of commitment in a relationship. How can you be ready to be a part of someone else’s soul when your soul isn’t settled yet? There is this huge part of you that’s missing—”

“Not missing, stolen. Taken away from me. I didn’t just drop it in the street and lose it. Kurt took it away, my mother let it happen and Raven justifies and explains it away because, no matter what she says, it made her just as uncomfortable as her true form makes any mutantphobic prick in the street. I can’t explain the way I’m feeling about it to anyone: not to Raven, not to you and certainly not some quack asking me about my feelings every five minutes to try to warrant the ridiculous pay rate they’re getting out of me.”

“So you’re just going to ignore it and hope it disappears? It doesn’t work like that, Charles. You can only keep it at bay for so long. Eventually, it’s going to eat you up. I don’t want that to happen to you. I care too much about you.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” he had shot back before disappearing into the bathroom.

He had contemplated staying in but he ultimately stormed past Gabrielle and left the house on his own, intent on not missing the event Edie invited him to, but he had still been fuming as he walked down the street.

He was so angry that he didn’t realize he was lost until he very nearly walked out into the busy street and was stopped by a pedestrian who proceeded to curse his intelligence in irate German for two minutes until the light changed. Charles walked across but stopped after a moment, looking around with furrowed brows. He had to get to Lörick from Bilk for the memorial unveiling. He was past the university by now, closer to the bridge, but he had no clue where to go from there. Perhaps he should just go home. He could make his excuses, but he promised Edie and Ruth he would go. It seemed like this event was important to them and he hated to disappoint.

“Damn it,” he grumbled before sighing and walking towards the pedestrian pathway on Oberkasseler Brücke. Hopefully, he’d be able to ask for directions once he got to the other side of the river.

He walked along the bridge absentmindedly, trying to keep his mind away from the thoughts that Gabrielle had brought up. So introspective was he that he almost walked right past the familiar man standing on the pedestrian pathway, staring down the edge of the bridge into the Rhein.

Erik.

He looked lost in thought, not noticing anyone around him. He wondered if he could just walk right past him. Then again, he had no clue where to go once he left this bridge and seeing as how Erik was here, it would be foolish to walk past him and end up lost. He cleared his throat to get his attention. Erik glanced over at him and did a quick doubletake, furrowing his brows.

“Charles?”

“Hi,” he greeted, rocking on his heels a bit while stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Just on my way to the memorial induction.”

“Ruth said you were getting a ride from Gabby.”

“I was, yes. Didn’t work out.”

Erik’s eyebrows grew pinched.

“What? She just left you stranded?”

“I said I’d walk. Except…”

Erik quirked a questioning brow.

“Well, I don’t know where I’m going, so…”

“’Course not,” the older man mumbled, before he pushed off the railing with some reluctance.

He nodded his head for Charles to follow him and he fell into step beside the other man, following the path across the river. They were quiet, the only sounds a few sirens and cars around them. Charles picked at his nails, contemplating if every interaction with Erik would be either uncommunicative and awkward or charged by high emotions.

“So, uh, what were you doing?”

Erik glanced at him questioningly.

“Back there. Not contemplating jumping I hope.”

“Just… thinking.”

“About?”

Erik hesitated a moment before answering.

“The memorial. I haven’t followed much about its construction.”

“What’s it for anyway?”

“Mama didn’t tell you?”

“No, just asked if I would attend. It seemed like it was personal. I assumed perhaps a World War II commemoration, or something sponsored by the synagogue.”

“It’s for the Lörick Bombing eight years ago.”

“Bombing?”

“A government building was targeted because it had recently opened up mutant social services, which saw an influx of mutants coming to Düsseldorf for the assistance. You probably never heard of it. I don’t imagine a bombing by a lone bigot in Lörick would make world news.”

“I’ve heard of it. I just didn’t put two and two together.”

Charles winced as he recalled seeing the news when he was younger. He had sat next to his father in his study staring wide-eyed at the television, Brian shaking his head in sympathy and disgust as he held the young boy close. There had been many youth-oriented activities hosted there, afterschool programs and a daycare even. The number of children that died were in the double digits. It had seemed so far away, barely a blip to Charles in his warm mansion. He never imagined he would meet someone who might’ve been there or lived through it.

“After the bombing, Mama moved us to Bilk and opened JLC. Grief does different things to different people. It lit a fire under Mama, made her want to be an advocate for mutant and mixed-gene families.”

“Grief?”

Erik glanced over at him, his face a riot of emotion. Charles didn’t think he’d ever seen him this expressive before.

“That’s how my father died. He was killed during the terrorist attack.”

Charles blinked in surprise.

“I… I didn’t know.”

Erik shrugged a little.

“Why would you?”

Charles opened and closed his mouth a few times before shaking his head.

“I know it doesn’t help or change anything, but I’m sorry for the loss.”

Erik nodded in return and they fell into another silence, this one charged with emotion. Charles opened his mouth to ask Erik to explain what had happened, but before he could, the other man spoke.

“You hungry?”

Charles shrugged.

“A bit peckish.”

“Here,” he said as he pulled a bag of hamantasch out of his pocket.

Charles accepted a few of the offered snacks and took a bite of a chocolate one.

“Mmm, this is delicious. Did you make these?”

Erik huffed a breath.

“Must you sound so surprised?”

“It’s just… I don’t know, I’ve never pictured you as a baker or a cook.”

“I have to eat somehow. I can’t always swing by Mama’s for leftovers. How do you eat if you don’t cook?”

“Copious amounts of take-out and pity from Gabby or our elderly neighbors mostly,” he answered before blushing at his embarrassing honesty.

“I don’t think my mother would forgive me for wasting her lessons on take-out every day. Besides, it’s hard trying to figure out which restaurants are telling the truth when they claim to be kosher.”

“I can’t cook to save my life. In my defense, I didn’t have a mother that would take the time to teach me.”

“I don’t imagine you’d need to. Your mansion had chefs, didn’t it?”

“I did attempt to help our cooks sometimes. I mostly just made a mess and they set me to cutting vegetables, but our pastry chef did teach me how to bake. Baking is a lot more precise and scientific than cooking is. It came easier to me.”

“Your mother allowed you to apprentice with the hired help?” Erik replied in a wry tone.

Charles tried to examine it. He didn’t sound like he meant to cause offense, but he also sounded something approaching bitter. Charles could certainly match that when it came to his family.

“My mother didn’t care what I did, as long as I wasn’t bothering her. We don’t all have mothers like Edie. You’re lucky,” he replied, taking a few more bites of the cookies so he didn’t have to look at Erik.

“Anyway, these are almost as good as the ones I make.”

“How very humble of you to say.”

Charles chuckled a little before speaking.

“Picture this: ten batches of cookies at 20 cookies a batch, plus 100 tartlets while simultaneously studying for an anthropology midterm and editing essays for the science department’s writing center all in one night so Gabby can throw the grooviest Purim party in all of North Rhine-Westphalia.”

“Groovy?”

“What? You don’t like my slang? Don’t I sound hip to the times?”

“If you’re some flower child from the 60s, then sure.”

“I’d do well in the 60s, I think.”

“I’ve no doubt,” he replied, eyeing Charles’ plaid tweed jacket.

He shot him a small glare in return before tilting a challenging brow.

“I’d dare you to conquer culinary feats like that on a school night. Granted, I have some experience. A little after my escape to Oxford, I had this roommate. Before I moved in with him, I used to bum the expiring food at the coffee shop I worked at, but a teenager can’t subsist on pastries. He would cook for me, but my baking was far superior to his. Once I baked over 100 mini Victoria sponge cakes for a Valentine’s Day bash he threw. It’s a bit ridiculous I keep getting roped into tasks like that by roommates, to be honest.”

“Wait, escaped?”

“Hmm?” Charles questioned, more interested in the cookies.

“You said you escaped to Oxford. And that you worked in a coffee shop. Did your parents cut you off or something?”

Charles paused in his actions, not realizing he had disclosed that information.

“No, it was… I was cut off in a sense, yes, but it was more my doing than anything else. I…”

Erik continued looking at him quizzically. Charles wondered if he should speak about this. He and Erik weren’t friends, they were… well, Charles didn’t know, but he didn’t owe Erik this sensitive part of his past. He didn’t like getting into it with anyone. Not even Gabby knew everything, but Erik had opened up to him today, more than usual. Which wasn’t saying much but was a lot for the other man. Still, did he want to go into a diatribe about his personal history? Erik and a few others seemed to look at him and see a spoiled little rich boy who never had to work for a thing in his life. It was a matter of pride at this point.

“I’m not close to my stepfather. He isn’t the warmest man. Truthfully, he’s a mean son-of-a-bitch. He doesn’t care about much more than money and power. He’s a traditionalist to boot, so me and my siblings were meant to fall in line with everything he said.”

Charles rolled his eyes indiscreetly.

“Mostly, we did, but sometimes we rebelled and he punished us accordingly. My stepsister got off the lightest of the three of us. My mother was fond of her. It was like she had different parents than me and my stepbrother. Cain tried to protect me, so he got the worst of the beatings, but I certainly have my scars.”

Charles took a moment to think of the years of fear and hurt every time Kurt got angry about this thing or that which he felt Charles didn’t do correctly or if Raven’s mask slipped just that bit too much or Cain was too defiant. He thought of Cain standing between the larger man and Charles, taking the brunt of Kurt’s physical attacks when he could and soothing the younger boy’s wounds when he couldn’t. Kurt’s reign of terror was never just confined to his lab. He asserted his iron rule on every aspect of Charles’ life until he was finally able to wriggle his way to freedom.

“I got accepted to Oxford early. My father had a college fund set up that would cover tuition, I just needed a way to pay for housing and to get overseas. My stepfather refused to pay for anything, and my mother didn’t care. Eventually, I was able to get in contact with my family lawyers and petition to become an emancipated minor. That way, I’d have access to my inheritance and I wouldn’t need them. My stepfather sued me in turn and the money got held up in litigation. I managed to get enough released to get me to Oxford and tide me over for a few months until I got a job. It wasn’t easy, a sixteen-year-old on his own in a foreign country with two suitcases to my name. A classmate had an open room, offered rent cheap enough that my measly jobs at a local library and coffee shop could pay for it. I managed until what was left of my inheritance was released to me.”

Erik’s face went through more emotions than Charles thought he had ever seen on him before, but they were all so subtle that he couldn’t tell what they meant.

“Is he dead, your stepfather?”

His voice sounded weirdly cold. Charles wasn’t sure why.

“No. He’s still in New York with my mother.”

 _Living in my father’s house_ , he thought angrily but didn’t say.

“You’ve never tried to get them back for what they did, give them something deserving of the treatment they gave you,” Erik inquired.

Charles shrugged.

“At my angriest and most bitter, but my father wouldn’t have wanted that. Kurt’s sick now. That feels like punishment enough. I don’t need to have any active part in his suffering, whether I want to or not. I want nothing to do with him. My mother though, I try, if only for my father’s sake. He was all I had in the world for a long while.”

Erik glanced over at him and something in his eye made Charles quicken to explain further.

“Sure, I had the mansion and the money and the servants as you’ve pointed out before, but my father was the only one that cared about me. Sharon loved my father and he wanted a child, so she gave him one. After he died, she transferred her affection towards her brandy, and Raven to a lesser extent. I didn’t care when Dad was around but when he was taken away, I was alone in the world. So, yes, I try to be benevolent and absolvitory and _good_. I tell myself that it’s enough that they’re out of my life, that my vengeance will be getting my degrees, becoming a scientist and a professor against their wishes. I tell myself that I get no joy out of Kurt’s diagnosis and that, someday if I work at it hard enough, I can forgive them. Eventually.”

Erik gave Charles a disbelieving look.

“Why would you ever do that?”

“For my siblings,” he replied, realizing the truth in his words as he said them.

“They try to hide it from me, but Cain’s wanted Kurt to love him and be proud of him his whole life. If Kurt said the word, my brother would excuse him for everything. Like I said, Raven and Sharon have a relationship. They’ve spent time together, more than Mother ever spent with me. I don’t think their relationship is 100% healthy, but that’s for Raven to decide. Being mad at my parents inevitably spills over to being mad at my siblings. We may not be related by blood, but the things we went through together supersedes the need for genetic similarity.”

“If that’s the case, then why are you here instead of Oxford with your sister?”

“I said I’m working on forgiveness, not that I’ve actually done it. I’m not a saint. I can hold grudges and be irrational and combative and mean. I’m trying to live by the maxim my father lived by. It’s harder than he made it look.”

“What maxim is that?”

“He told me people stumble, they make bad choices and they’re not always right. That doesn’t mean they should be abandoned. Just because someone loses their way doesn’t mean they’re lost forever or that they’re beyond help if only someone makes the choice to lend a hand.”

“You believe that?”

“I have to believe that. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have survived this long.”

“Sometimes anger can help you survive.”

“Oh, I know, but so can faith.”

Erik gave him a look that appeared equal parts fond and incredulous to Charles’ eyes. Maybe he was seeing things, maybe he wasn’t. Reading Erik seemed to require a full college course.

They fell into easy conversation on the rest of the walk towards the memorial site, flitting from subject to subject with an ease that surprised Charles. He didn’t know any interaction with Erik could be so easy. They had never tried.

He stuck by Erik’s side even after they arrived to the site and listened to the speakers get up on stage, including Edie, and talk about the community healing from events like this, the perseverance of the human spirit and the good nature of those who came to the aid of others on the day of the attack before the memorial was revealed, a large sculpture of five hands clasped to one another at the wrists, one detailed so that it was scaly and another more of a claw than a hand. The five hands circled a fountain, geysers of water shooting out intermittently. The names of victims were engraved in the granite of the fountain. Charles stopped beside Erik and stared down at the name _Jakob Lehnsherr_ where it sat nestled amongst the rest.

He had never given the man whose name marked the mutant outreach center much thought. He passed by a photo and placard with him every day and didn’t glance twice, but here among this crowd it was clear that he and all of the victims of the attack had an impact on Düsseldorf that Charles couldn’t understand. He felt like an outsider in some respects. Düsseldorf had come to mean safety and new opportunity for him, as it had to mutants years ago only for them to end up having that rug ripped from under them by way of a terrorist bombing. He couldn’t imagine that, but he could understand and admire the fortitude it took to keep going after that. He knew how difficult a task that was firsthand. Everyone here did, including Erik.

He glanced over at the man beside him. He was staring down at his father’s name, his fingers brushing over the letters. Charles was surprised to see a tear drift down his face before shaking that away. Of course, Erik was grieving. He wasn’t a robot. At least for Charles his father was taken by natural causes. Knowing your father was taken from you by someone else with nefarious intent must be so much worse.

He reached up and swiped away the tear, knowing Erik would hate to appear anything but composed. Erik captured Charles’ hand, stilling it against his face as he stared at him. He shot Erik a kind look, silently projecting comforting thoughts towards him even though he knew he couldn’t hear them. The German man sighed and guided Charles’ hand down to their sides, his fingers still interlaced with his.

He didn’t let go again for a long while.


End file.
